The Sleuth: March 30, 2008 - April 5, 2008

After a rough couple of years of House page scandals, the House Page Board has come up with new guidelines for lawmakers on their "communications and interactions" with the teenagers clad in navy blue suits who run errands for the powers that be on Capitol Hill. The bottom line message is: drop the Blackberry and back away from the pages. Mainly, the rules appear to...

By day, House members and senators butt heads in their respective bastions of gridlock. By night, (at least it happened one night this week) they butt knives and spatulas in a congressional version of stadium kitchen. It wasn't exactly Iron Chef, but about 50 members of Congress and their spouses competed in a celebrity chef competition at the March of Dimes Gourmet Gala Tuesday night....

Those who have worked with (or against) House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) know him as an intensely focused budget wonk with a very short fuse. But those who have jammed out with the 69-year-old Obey, as several House members did Tuesday night, know him as a "killer" harmonica player who gets crowds jumping to their feet and shaking their stuff. "Obey's a killer harp...

Bad day for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Her husband,Thomas Athans, cofounder of a liberal talk radio network, is cooperating with police in an Internet-based prostitution bust at hotels in Troy, Mich., according to the Detroit Free Press. According to the paper, Athans told police he "paid a prostitute $150 for sex at a Troy hotel in late February." The story notes that Athans, 46, was...

For all you folk music fans who have been wondering what Peter Yarrow (who put the "Peter" in Peter, Paul & Mary) thinks of the Democratic presidential primary: Puff the Magic Dragon doesn't have a problem with the bitter slugfest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Mr. Non-Violent Conflict Resolution has become Mr. Non-Conventional Wisdom. "When the chips are down and the fight is on,...

Departing HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson (Getty Images). Now that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson has resigned amid scandal, what will become of the multi-thousand dollar portrait of himself that he commissioned last fall to hang on the wall of HUD's new state-of-the-art auditorium? Currently, Jackson's portrait, and the others he had commissioned simultaneously of the four HUD secretaries before him -- Jack...

***************************** UPDATE: The first official Nationals Park baby has a name. And, believe it or not, it's not Ryan Zimmerman. Audrey Newmark Yedwab was born at 11:37 am Monday after her mother, Blake Newmark, was moved to labor by the thrill of Opening Night at the Washington Nationals new ballpark -- and in only the first inning! Luckily, she and her husband left the stadium...